www.miningengineeringmagazine.com Mınıng engıneerıng FEBRUARY 2021 25
Mining Education
Where have all the mining engineering students gone?
New study seeks insights to improve enrollment
by Jodi Banta, Isabel Barton and Lynnette Hutson
I
t’s no secret that student enrollments in
mining engineering programs have been
declining globally. In the United States and
Australia, numbers are down by nearly 50
percent (Roy et al., 2019; Roy, 2019) and as
much as 80 percent (Minerals Council of
Australia, 2019) from their respective peaks in
2013 and 2012, and it is much the same story
for Canadian schools (Mining Industry Human
Resources Council, 2018).
We’ve all heard plenty
of speculation as to why — young people think
mining is dirty and archaic, it destroys the planet
or maybe they just don’t know it still exists?
Then there’s just straight-up competition from
other fields.
In an effort to improve our programs, the
University of Arizona’s (UArizona) Lowell
Institute for Mineral Resources and Mining
and Geological Engineering department started
asking students about their awareness and
perception of mining and mineral resources and
we learned some very interesting things.
According to a recent survey of UArizona
students (UArizona mining perception study
surveys, 2019):
• 72 percent agree that mineral resources
are “important” or “very important”
to their daily lives, with more than 40
percent saying “very important.”
• 84 percent agree that “mining is
necessary.”
• 49 percent rate the mining industry as
“as responsible as” other industries, with
more students rating it responsible as
opposed to irresponsible.
• 34 percent rate the mining industry as
“as modern as” other industries, with
more students rating it modern as
opposed to outdated.
Students were asked for their feedback on a
variety of questions regarding mining and we did
find that roughly half agree with the statement
“Mining harms the environment.” Ninety-two
percent agree with the
statement “Mining provides
jobs.” Based on responses
to all the questions, our
assessment of student
perceptions of the industry
is neutral. The perception
of engineering students is
significantly more positive
than that of students enrolled
in other fields.
In the same survey we
found that while 74 percent
Jodi Banta, Isabel Barton and
Lynnette Hutson, members SME,
are program manager, Lowell
Institute for Mineral Resources,
assistant professor of Mining and
Geological Engineering, and Ph.D.
student in the Mining and Geo-
logical Engineering Department,
respectively, at the University
of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Email
A view of the
University of
Arizona campus
in Tucson, AZ,
home of the
Lowell Institute
for Mineral
Resources and
Mining and Geo-
logical Engineer-
ing department.
26 FEBRUARY 2021 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
of UArizona students are aware that Arizona
has active mines, and 66 percent are aware
that UArizona offers a mining engineering
degree, very few students have any knowledge
of mining — with 67 percent reporting having
little to no knowledge of mining at all. In other
words, awareness and perception, at least of
the industry at large, and among UArizona
students, are not the main problems here.
UArizona students are highly aware of mining
and in general do not have a negative
perception of the industry — in fact,
they’re convinced that it is important,
but they really don’t know anything
about it. We’ll come back to knowledge.
These preliminary findings inspired
us to undertake further research to
better understand how students are
choosing their engineering field of
study. In particular, this research seeks
to gain a better understanding of why
particular engineering disciplines —
including mining engineering — have
chronically and consistently lower
enrollment than other engineering
disciplines. In the fall of 2020, we
implemented a new survey of the
freshman-level UArizona Introduction
to Engineering Design course. One
of the objectives of the course is to
introduce students to the 15 different
engineering fields of study available
to them at UArizona. For this reason,
we chose to run this survey at the
beginning, and again at the end of the
semester to measure the effect of the
class on outcomes related to students’
Most incoming freshmen engineering students are not knowledgeable about mining.
Figure 1
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is “I know nothing” and 5 is “I know all about it”, please rate your interest in the following fields.
N = 363
Incoming freshmen engineering students want to study fields they are
interested in and will give them options.
Figure 2
When choosing a major, the most important thing to me is (select up to three):
N = 363
I am interested in
learning about the
subject.
It will lead to a career
that offers me many
options.
It will lead to a high-
paying job.
It will lead to a job that
benefits society.
I think I will be good
at it.
www.miningengineeringmagazine.com Mınıng engıneerıng FEBRUARY 2021 27
Mining Education
choice of engineering major.
The survey at the beginning of the semester
was administered online to the nearly 500
students enrolled in the course and resulted in
a sample of 363 responses (UArizona freshmen
engineering student surveys, 2020),
representing more than 75 percent
of the class. The students’ self-
reported demographics largely
matched those of the current
UArizona College of Engineering
and other engineering schools
nationwide: notably 65 percent
male, and 73 percent white.
Eighty-four percent of
responders were 18 years old
or younger. That’s the age at
which students are choosing their
engineering major. And by their
own admission, when they enter
Introduction to Engineering
Design, they know very little
about the 15 different engineering
fields from which they’re meant to
choose.
As shown in Fig. 1, we asked
students to rate their knowledge of
each engineering field on a scale
from 1 to 5, with 5 being high.
Mechanical engineering scored
the highest with a mean score of
3.0, with one third of students
reporting some knowledge. Other fields that
scored highest on knowledge were Electrical
& Computer, Chemical and Aerospace. Mining
Engineering came in tied for last place, with
a mean score of 2.0 and nearly 75 percent of
Incoming freshmen engineering students rate mining among the least interesting engineering majors.
Figure 3
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is “completely uninteresting” and 5 is “very interesting”, please rate your interest in the following fields.
N = 363
Incoming freshmen engineering students are looking for job stability and high
salaries.
Figure 4
Which of the following attributes is important to you in your future job? Select up to three.
N = 363
Job stability
High salaries
Opportunities for
design/invention
Opportunities to solve
problems
Working with/inventing
the latest technology
28 FEBRUARY 2021 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
students saying they know nearly nothing about it.
We then asked the students to rate their interest
in the same 15 fields (Fig. 3). Aerospace scored
the highest at 3.5. Other fields that students found
interesting included Mechanical, Electrical &
Computer, Biomedical and Chemical engineering.
Mining Engineering again tied for last place, with a
mean score of 2.0, and a full 40 percent of students
rating it as “completely uninteresting.”
Not surprisingly, there is a very strong
correlation between students’ knowledge of a
field and their level of interest in it. Students are
unlikely to be interested in a subject they know
little about.
So, what do engineering students say they
consider when choosing a major? In our survey,
they could choose up to three answers (Fig. 2).
The top choices were “I am interested in
learning more about the subject” (58 percent) and
“It will lead to a career with a lot of options” (36
percent), followed closely by “It will lead to a high-
paying job” (35 percent).
Interest in disciplines that “benefits society”
is also high with around 30 percent of students
picking this option.
“I think I will be good at it” came in at a distant
fifth place (23 percent). Other answer choices all
received well under 10 percent.
When asked about what is important to them
in a future career, shown in Fig. 4 (students could
choose up to three answers), not surprising at this
moment in time, the top choice was “job stability”
(51 percent), followed by “high salaries” (46
percent).
“Opportunities to invent” and “Opportunities
to solve big problems” followed, each selected by
about 42 percent and 39 percent of responders,
respectively. “Working with/inventing the latest
technology” came in at fifth place with about 30
percent of responders. Other answer choices were
selected by 20 percent of responders or fewer.
Translating that into intended majors, more
than half the class reported intending to major
in one of the four most interesting majors:
Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical & Computer and
Biomedical Engineering.
When asked about their confidence in their
choice of major, again on a scale from 1 to 5,
the average was 3.5. When asked about their
knowledge of careers associated with choice of
major, the average rating was 3.0. So at 18 years
old, with little knowledge of the subjects they
may study, or of related careers, it is no surprise
students lean toward general interest in a subject
they think they know something about (as opposed
to nothing) and something they hope will lead to a
wide range of career options.
Early results from the end-of-semester survey
indicate that knowledge of all subjects went
up an average of nearly 40 percent and mining
engineering was the biggest mover with average
knowledge increasing by 70 percent, which
moved it up to fifth place in the knowledge
rankings. From 74 percent of students saying
they knew nothing or very little about mining
engineering at the beginning of the semester,
only 17 percent said so at the end. Interest also
increased, from only 10 percent of students
rating Mining Engineering as interesting or very
interesting at the beginning of the semester, to
nearly 30 percent by the end. We like to think
our research and corresponding changes to how
the major is presented are paying off. However,
there’s still much more work to do, as while the
number of students intending to major in Mining
Engineering also increased, the increase was not
as substantial.
Over the coming years, the UArizona will
be taking a deeper dive into all of this. We
will research what students find interesting
about some fields (and not others), how to
identify what students do find interesting about
mining engineering and how to communicate
that effectively to a wider audience, and how
to bring to life the variety of career options
available in mining engineering. We’ll also be
seeking a better understanding of students we
are currently successfully attracting to mining
engineering, and those we wish we were but are
not.
To learn more about these studies or results,
please contact Jodi Banta [email protected]. n
References
Roy, J., Wilson, C., Erdiaw-Kwasie, A., and Stuppard,
C., 2019, Engineering & Engineering Technology by the
Numbers, 2019. American Society for Engineering Education.
(https://ira.asee.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/E-ET-by-
the-Numbers-2019.pdf).
Roy, J., 2019, Engineering by the Numbers. American
Society for Engineering Education. (https://ira.asee.org/
wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2018-Engineering-by-Numbers-
Engineering-Statistics-UPDATED-15-July-2019.pdf).
Minerals Council of Australia, 2019, The next frontier.
(https://minerals.org.au/sites/default/files/190208%20The%20
Next%20Frontier%20MCA%20Policy%20Priorities.pdf).
Mining Industry Human Resources Council, 2018,
Canadian Mining Labour Market Outlook, 2019. (https://
mihr.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/NationalOutlook2019_
EN_Final-Chap3Fix.pdf).
UArizona mining perception study surveys were
conducted face-to-face using tablet computers November-
December 2019. Sample size = 344, confidence level of 95
percent, and margin of error of +/- 5.25 percent.
UArizona freshmen engineering student surveys were
conducted online (a) September 14-October 26, 2020. Sample
size = 363, confidence level of 95 percent, and margin of
error of +/-2.7 percent. (b) November 30-December 6, 2020.
Sample size = 367, confidence level of 95 percent and margin
of error of +/-2.7 percent.
30 OCTOBER 2021 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
How to get more students to major in mining engineering?
Answers from the University of Arizona
by Isabel Barton, Jodi Banta and Lynnette Hutson
W
hat keeps students from majoring in
mining engineering? As our previous
article (Mining Engineering, Feb. 2021) pointed
out, it’s not that they think mining is dirty,
or that it’s low-tech, or that it’s unnecessary
(Banta et al., 2021), in fact, they know too little
about mining to hold preconceived ideas about
it at all. Instead, the problem is that students
hardly know mining engineering exists as a
possible career option. The facts are that the
University of Arizona (UArizona) engineering
students show up to college knowing less about
mining engineering than they do about any of
the 14 other engineering majors available, and
correspondingly, lack interest in the subject.
What can be done to change this lack of
exposure to the field? In this second report
of our ongoing study, the UArizona’s Lowell
Institute for Mineral Resources and Mining and
Geological Engineering department tackles that
question. We look at how freshmen engineering
students’ levels of knowledge and interest in
mining engineering change as they are exposed
to new information. We’ll also pinpoint some
common student motivations and interests, and
how mining engineering can fit within these.
About the study
First, a note on methodology. We conducted
two online surveys with students in UArizona’s
required course for engineering freshmen,
engineering design. A baseline survey was
done early in the semester, and a second one
to measure change in knowledge and attitudes
was done at the end of the semester. Most of
the survey questions for each were the same
and included questions related to demographics,
levels of knowledge and interest in UArizona’s
15 different engineering majors, career
aspirations, motivations for choosing a major,
and sources of information. The end-of-semester
survey contained additional
questions asking students
whether their intended
majors had changed since the
beginning of the semester and
if so, why.
In between the two
surveys students watched
an approximately 20-minute
video on each of the 15
majors in the UArizona’s
College of Engineering
and attended or watched the recording of a
live question and answer session with a faculty
member representing each major. We received
363 responses at the beginning of the survey
and 367 at the end, representing more than a 75
percent response rate, a confidence level of 95
percent, and a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percent.
The self-reported demographics of the responses
largely mirrored the overall demographics of
the UArizona College of Engineering with two-
thirds male, 65 percent Arizona residents, three-
quarters white, and approximately 20 percent
Hispanic. The study was carried out under UA
IRB protocol #2002354299.
A little information about mining goes
a long way
At the beginning of the semester, nearly 75
percent of students reported knowing almost
nothing about mining engineering. By the end
of the semester, that number had dropped
to 17 percent. The average reported level of
knowledge about mining engineering went
from 2/5 at the beginning of semester to 3.4/5
at the end, representing the biggest increase of
any engineering major, and almost double the
average increase, which was +0.95. The reported
average level of interest in mining engineering
increased from 2/5 at the beginning of the
semester to 2.7/5 at the end of the semester.
That figure was less than the jump in knowledge,
but still the second-biggest percentage increase
of any engineering major. Mining engineering
therefore went from being the least-known
and least-interesting of the 15 majors at the
beginning of the semester, to the fifth best-
known and around the middle of the pack in
average interest by the end of the semester.
Increasing mining knowledge
Students are not interested in subjects
they know nothing about, and increasing
their knowledge doesn’t always correspond
with greater interest. For example, take civil
engineering and engineering management. Early
in the semester both were wallowing at only
slightly higher levels of interest than mining
engineering. But by the end of the semester,
students knew a lot more about civil engineering
and engineering management, but still had little
interest in the subjects.
Luckily, mining engineering is different:
increased knowledge positively correlated
Jodi Banta, Isabel Barton and
Lynnette Hutson, members SME,
are program manager, Lowell
Institute for Mineral Resources,
assistant professor of Mining and
Geological Engineering, and Ph.D.
student in the Mining and Geo-
logical Engineering Department,
respectively, at the University
of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Email
www.miningengineeringmagazine.com Mınıng engıneerıng OCTOBER 2021 31
Mining Education
with increased interest. For example, a 70
percent increase in knowledge (from 2 to 3.4/5)
translated into a 35 percent increase in interest
(from 2 to 2.7/5) and a 20 percent increase in the
number of students who reported planning on
majoring in mining engineering. For comparison,
knowledge of civil engineering went from 2.7 to
3.4/5, but interest in this major rose only from 2.3
to 2.6/5. In engineering management, knowledge
rose from 2.5 to 3.3/5, but interest only rose from
2.1 to 2.4/5. For about the same end-of-semester
knowledge levels among all three of these
majors, mining engineering garnered a much
higher level of interest.
The rise in interest with increasing knowledge
gives mining an advantage over most other
majors in engineering. Materials science shows a
pattern similar to mining engineering, but levels
of interest in the other engineering majors went
up by an average of 0.33/5, which is less than 15
percent, for an average knowledge increase of
0.95/5 or 41 percent. Sometimes this was because
a field, e.g., aerospace engineering, had started
out with a high level of interest and didn’t have
much room to grow. But for most of the other
engineering fields, an increase in knowledge over
the course of the semester just didn’t move the
needle on interest. Mining’s luck may be due
to an unexpected wow factor. When an honors
section of the engineering design course was
asked which major they found most surprising,
overwhelmingly they chose mining engineering.
Aspects that surprised students in
cluded the
importance–that mining supplies the materials
Mining and geological engineering had the largest increase in knowledge over the course of the semester.
Figure 1
Mining and geological engineering had the second largest increase in interest over the course of the semester.
Figure 2
32 OCTOBER 2021 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
we rely on every day, and that they are needed
for advancing society and technology. Students
were also surprised at the opportunities for
improving efficiencies and sustainability in the
industry, and the potential to work all over the
world. One student remarked that at first it “just
sounded boring,” but that after learning about it,
mining engineering turned out to be “absolutely
fascinating.”
It’s also a good sign that the number
of students planning to major in mining
engineering increased over the course of the
semester as they learned more about it. For
four of the 15 fields, the number of intended
majors either stayed flat over the semester
(i.e., architectural engineering and engineering
management) or decreased (i.e., optical sciences
and environmental engineering). It seems
mining engineering has a definite advantage:
once students know about it, they start to think
it’s cool.
How information affects major choice
This study also found that once students
have picked a major, it doesn’t take long for
attitudes and plans to harden. By the end of the
semester, only 6.5 percent of students were
undecided, and students with a selected major
reported much more confidence in their
choice than they had at the beginning of the
semester. The change was especially notable
among students who planned to major in
mining engineering. Early in the semester, this
group reported being moderately confident in
their choice (average 3.5/5). By the end of the
semester, that confidence level had increased
to 4.3/5. During the course of the semester,
students planning on a mining engineering
major had gone from tenth most confident out
of the 15 majors, to most confident of all. Mining
engineering students also rated themselves as
the second most knowledgeable group about
careers available in their chosen major (3.6/5)
after industrial engineering majors (3.7/5).
Knowledge of available careers showed a
statistically significant positive correlation with
confidence in major choice. This is consistent
with related findings suggesting that students’
ability to connect education to careers improves
their confidence in the value of their education
(StradaEducation.org/PublicViewpoint October
27, 2020).
Knowledge and interest in mining engineering increased more than many other disciplines over the course of the semester.
Figure 3
www.miningengineeringmagazine.com Mınıng engıneerıng OCTOBER 2021 33
Mining Education
What students want in a major and a
career
What is it that students are hoping
to get out of mining engineering, or
for that matter, out of any engineering
major? That answer doesn’t vary much
across most engineering disciplines,
nor from the beginning to the end of
the semester. Stable jobs, high pay, and
opportunities to invent and to solve
problems are the most often cited
motivations among survey respondents.
The findings of the survey show
that all students want much of the
same things out of their careers, and
they have similar expectations about
what they will get out of their majors.
When mining engineering students were
asked to select their top three reasons
for choosing their major, by far the
biggest responses (75 percent) were
related to interest in the subject. “It
will lead to a career that offers me lots
of options,” was a choice selected by 50 percent
of the planned mining engineering majors (up
from 30 percent in an earlier survey), and “It will
lead to a job that benefits society,” was selected
by 33 percent (up from 20 percent in an earlier
survey). Mining engineering students were less
likely to pick “I think I will be good at it,” or “It
will lead to a high-paying job,” compared
to other engineering students. However,
none of these differences was statistically
significant to < 0.05, so the responses
from mining engineering students were
close to those for other engineering
freshmen.
Unique qualities of mining engineering
students
We asked students in the early
semester survey to rate their level of
interest in various fields of high school
science, and we found these results to
be an indicator of interest in mining
engineering as a major in college. For
example, compared to the rest of the
freshmen engineers, students majoring
in mining engineering reported far more
interest in earth science and slightly
more interest in environmental science,
chemistry and astronomy than their
engineering peers. Further, they were
significantly less interested than other
students in optics, computer science,
and health science. Interest in math and
biology was average with other students.
If there’s one feature that clearly
sets apart students who want to study
mining engineering from other freshmen, it’s
what we might call cubicle claustrophobia.
Overwhelmingly, mining engineering students
want to be able to work outside. A whopping 42
percent selected opportunities to work outside
as one of their top three most important c
areer
Mining students value similar career attributes as other engineering students.
Figure 4
Factors incfluencing mining students’ choice of major are similar to other
engineering students.
Figure 5
34 OCTOBER 2021 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
attributes, compared to only 8 percent for
all other students. That made outside work
the second most popular career attribute for
mining engineering students. The most popular
reason for choosing mining, and almost every
other type of engineering, was the opportunity
for high salaries. Perhaps related to working
outside, 42 percent of responses from
mining engineering students selected travel
opportunities among their top three career
attributes.
Key take-aways
How can we use these survey results to
attract more students to mining engineering?
First, focus on increasing knowledge, both of
mining and mining engineering careers. Second,
start by sharing foundational knowledge
and start early. For example, answer these
questions with youth. Why do we mine? Why
is it important? What does a career in mining
engineering look like? Emphasize options and
variety in subject matter knowledge, careers,
and locations where mining engineers work,
including outdoors and around the world.
Sharing information about environmental and
social responsibility, the latest technology, and
high salaries won’t differentiate mining from
other types of engineering, but it will help
keep it competitive with other technical and
scientific industries. The Lowell Institute’s K-12
program has information and ideas on how to
outreach to youth and can be found at https://
minerals.arizona.edu/engagement or contact
Christopher Earnest at [email protected].
edu.
Conclusion and what’s next
By the time students wrap up their first
semester in college, they have pretty much
made up their minds about their majors, and
are unlikely to change them. For this study, the
number of undecided students went from 75
to 24 during the course of the semester, while
students who had already chosen a major
became much more confident in their selections.
Once majors are declared, close to 70 percent
of students will not change their major based
on national statistics (National Science Board,
2019). Even if students want to change majors,
by the end of their first year, most are locked in
by curriculum requirements, finances, family and
peer pressure, and the need to graduate and get
a job.
As we continue our research we’ll be talking
to students who choose mining engineering to
get a better idea of why they’re interested in
it, and when and how this interest began. We’ll
probe where students get their information
about various majors, and what are their most
influential resources. n
Further information
To learn more about these studies or results
contact Isabel Barton at [email protected]
or Jodi Banta at [email protected].
References
Banta, J.H., Barton, I.F., and Hutson, L.L., 2021. Where
have all the mining engineering students gone? Mining
Engineering February 2021, 25-28.
National Science Board, 2019. Higher education in
science and engineering. Science & Engineering Indicators,
NSB-2019-7, 67 p.
Mining students want careers with high pay, outdoor work, travel opportunities and that are family friendly.
Figure 6
30 MARCH 2022 Mınıng engıneerıng www.miningengineeringmagazine.com
Mining Education
H
ow do we attract more students to mining
engineering majors? In two previous
articles (Mining Engineering, Feb. and Oct.
2021), we identified the main problem:
Students arrive in college knowing less about
mining engineering than they do about any
other engineering major, and they are not
interested in subjects they do not know much
about. Remedy that disparity in background
knowledge, even by a little bit, and there’s a
large upward swing in interest.
But to be effective,
information has to arrive
early. Even starting
freshmen have strong pre-
formed interests, opinions
and plans, and they harden
fast (Barton et al., 2021).
Three weeks into their
freshmen semester, about
80 percent of the students
we surveyed had already
decided on a major. Three
months later, a mere five
to seven percent still listed
their major as “undecided.” Less than a third
of the students — including those who began as
undecided – reported changing their planned
majors over the course of the semester. That
does not leave much time or space to change
minds.
So what are the most effective channels of
information? Where should university mining
engineering departments focus their limited
resources? What kinds of communications
matter, and which do not change minds? This
article uses additional data from our fall 2020
and fall 2021 surveys of the University of
Arizona (UArizona) freshmen engineering class
to identify where students look for information
about potential majors, what does not influence
them so much, and what motivates them to
change their major. We conclude with some
lessons learned and recommendations about
where to focus recruitment efforts for the
greatest impact.
Background information
A few words first about the freshmen
engineering class at UArizona and our study.
Getting students interested in
mining engineering:
How can we reach them?
By Isabel Barton, Jodi Banta and Lynnette Hutson
Jodi Banta, Isabel Barton and
Lynnette Hutson, members SME,
are program manager, Lowell
Institute for Mineral Resources,
assistant professor of Mining
and Geological Engineering,
and Ph.D. student in the Min-
ing and Geological Engineering
Department, respectively, at the
University of Arizona in Tucson,
AZ. Email, [email protected].
www.miningengineeringmagazine.com Mınıng engıneerıng MARCH 2022 31
Mining Education
All incoming (nontransfer) freshmen students
planning any engineering major are required to
take the same engineering design course in their
first semester. The course has two components:
focused design work in smaller class sections and
a large, combined weekly lecture that exposes
students to material about majors and careers in
engineering.
Throughout the middle eight weeks of the
course, the material in this combined lecture
class is given by designated representatives of
each of UArizona’s 15 different engineering
majors. Each representative/group provides an
approximately 20-minute video introduction
to the major. All students are required to
watch the video before class, take a quiz on its
essential points and then attend a 20-minute
class-time question and answer session with the
representatives.
In the final two weeks of the semester,
representatives from each major arrange for an
open house that consists of a longer (one-hour)
information session on the major and the careers
it opens up. These commonly include hands-on
activities when done in person, and a question
and answer session with a broader range of
faculty for both in-person and virtual open
houses. The organization of the open house is up
to each department housing the major. Students
in the freshmen class must attend at least two
open houses of their choice for engineering
majors.
We administered two online surveys each
semester in the fall of 2020 and 2021, one at the
beginning and one at the end of the course. The
surveys included demographic information,
levels of knowledge and interest in different
engineering majors, planned major, sources of
information, career goals and desired career
attributes (Banta et al., 2021; Barton et al.,
2021). After excluding incomplete responses and
responses from students under the age of 18,
all surveys had a confidence level of 95 percent
with a ±3 percent margin of error.
Among other questions, we asked students
to rank, in order from most to least influential,
the following sources of information about
potential majors: family, friends, internet search,
social media, high school teachers, college
professors, high school and college counselors
and professionals working in a related field. The
same question was also on the end-of-semester
survey and we compared the results.
Where students look for (important)
information about their majors
Two sources of information clearly stand
out as most influential: family and internet
searching. Particularly at the beginning of the
semester, no other sources of information come
close. Family ranks as slightly more influential
than internet searching, but the two are close,
and the gap decreases over the semester. Social
media is the least influential in all surveys.
Clearly, information that reaches students
in high school is important, especially early in
the semester when their exposure to college
material is limited. In the fall of 2020, the trends
are obscure, since high school counselors and
college advisors were grouped into the same
X-axis: time of survey. Y-axis: relative strength of influence, calculated as an average ranking by students (1 = most
important, higher numbers = less important) divided by number of options available to rank (seven in fall 2020; nine
in fall 2021).
Figure 1
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Mining Education
response category as were high school teachers
and college professors.
In the fall of 2021 these were broken out into
four distinct groups, increasing the total number
of options from seven to nine. Although this
means that the results of the fall 2020 and fall
2021 surveys are not directly comparable, it did
distinguish the influence of high school teachers
and counselors (which starts out high and
declines over the semester) from the influence
of college advisors and professors (which starts
out low but rises steeply over the semester).
The influence of professionals in a related
field is moderate and static. Friends begin as a
significant source of influence, but this declines
over the semester.
Why and when students change majors
At the end of the semester, we asked students
if they had changed their planned major since the
start of the fall semester. To students who said
yes, a follow-up question asked them to select
the principal reasons why. Overwhelmingly, the
top answer was the information presented in
the lecture series of the freshmen engineering
design class. Internet and friends were a distant
second and third, and the open house visits in the
engineering design class and their engineering
professors were close behind. Social media came
in last.
The importance of information acquired
in the freshmen engineering design class was
particularly clear among students who changed
to mining engineering majors. In both semesters,
the lecture, video and question and answer
sessions were by far the most common selections
among new mining engineering majors, and the
open house associated with the engineering
design class came in second.
Friends, classmates and
college professors were also
influential. In contrast to most
other students who changed their
majors, new mining engineering
majors were less likely to report
being influenced by information
from college advisors or the
internet.
The results also underscore
the importance to mining
engineering recruitment of
simply having a single first-year
introductory class that exposes
students to all engineering majors.
Freshmen enter college already
well-informed about mechanical,
aerospace, electrical/computer
and biomedical engineering.
Most of them will select one of those majors by
default, particularly in the absence of exposure
to other options.
By contrast, the lower-profile majors such
as mining engineering and materials science see
a disproportionate rise in levels of knowledge,
interest and intended majors over the course of
the engineering design class (Barton et al., 2021).
As Fig. 2 demonstrates, most of that rise is due
to exposure in the freshmen engineering design
class and favorable experiences during associated
open house activities.
By contrast, universities that admit students
directly into individual majors without a
common first-year class place smaller enrollment
engineering majors, including mining, and are
at a disadvantage relative to higher-profile
alternatives.
Does coming from a mining family matter?
It is a common belief that most students who
major in mining engineering are from families
with mining engineers, miners or other mining
industry professionals. Let’s see whether that
belief holds up against the data.
Starting with family influences: As both Figs 1
and 2 indicate, families outrank even the internet
as important sources of influence. But judging
from our in-depth results, family influence seems
to consist more of a general encouragement
toward an engineering career than as a push into
any specific field.
The reported degree of family influence,
or having engineers in the family, does not
correspond to a higher-than-average level of
knowledge or interest for any engineering
major. When we compared the reported levels
of knowledge and interest at the beginning of
the semester between student groups with and
Responses as to why students change majors.
Figure 2
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Mining Education
without engineers in the family, we found that
there were no statistically significant differences.
Figure 3 shows differences at the level of
individual majors; the darker color represents
students with engineers in the family.
But by drilling deeper into the survey data
and looking at individual types of engineering,
the picture changes. A total of 15 students in
early fall 2020 and 2021 reported having a
mining engineer in the family. Their average
levels of knowledge about and interest in
mining engineering were somewhat higher
than the average for the survey populations
as a whole: mining was the field they were
most knowledgeable about and the third
most interesting to them on average (behind
mechanical and electrical/computer engineering).
Three listed mining engineering as their planned
major. Although the population is small, this is a
significantly higher proportion (20 percent) than
the less than 10 percent of students in the overall
class who planned a mining engineering major in
the early-semester survey.
The data show that students with mining
engineers in the family are twice as likely to
consider or plan a mining engineering major,
but their numbers are so small that most
mining engineering majors actually come from
nonmining families. Thus, we conclude that
while having a mining engineer in the family
makes a student more likely than most to
select mining engineering as a major, a larger
number of students are attracted to the major by
other sources, particularly exposure to mining
engineering in the freshmen class.
Lessons learned: Channels for effective
recruitment
Let’s close with some takeaways from this
phase of the survey. Where should university
mining engineering departments focus their
recruitment efforts to maximize effectiveness?
On the other hand, what is a waste of effort?
To recruit students already in college, one
answer is clear: Put the most effort into ensuring
that exposure in the freshmen engineering
design course is high-quality and gives students
a positive impression. Often in university
departments, freshmen outreach and other
recruitment-related tasks are allocated to faculty
based on who has the most time and willingness
to undertake them, not on who would do the best
job.
As the results above demonstrate, exposure
in the freshmen engineering course is the
overwhelming reason why students change
majors, particularly those who switch to mining
engineering. Ensuring that mining engineering
is well represented to incoming freshmen
with high-quality and engaging materials and
teaching is probably the most important part
of a recruitment program for university mining
engineering departments. It is also important that
there be an accessible, friendly faculty or staff
member available for students to follow up with.
Many students want to consult with someone in
the department before finalizing their decision,
but they may not know whom to talk to or where
to go.
It is harder for college professors to get into
high schools for recruiting, but still important.
By the time students get to college, most of them
have already made up their minds about their
majors, and most will not change them. High
school teachers and counselors are an important
source of information for students early on, at
the time when most of them are selecting majors.
Feedback from our education and
recruitment outreach coordinators suggests that
very few high school teachers and counselors
Results and possible influence of having an engineer in the family.
Figure 3
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Mining Education
know much about mining engineering careers.
If the counselors are not aware of mining as a
career option, students will not be either.
Lastly, online efforts are better spent
optimizing internet search results than
social media presence. Social media may be
omnipresent in students’ lives, but that does not
seem to exercise much actual influence when
they make important decisions like choosing
a major. It is important to maintain a baseline
social media presence, which is largely expected
these days and can be helpful for giving students
a taste of the social environment (what is it like
to be a mining engineering student?), but we
should not confuse presence with influence.
In contrast, students do seek out and use
information from online searches. Making sure
that they have abundant, reliable and accurate
information about mining engineering at their
digital fingertips is crucial to inducing them to
think about it as a career.
Going forward
The UArizona’s Lowell Institute for
Mineral Resources and Mining and Geological
Engineering department is continuing our
research. In our next installment, we will
examine how different demographic groups view
mining engineering, drawing some lessons about
how to reach a larger and more diverse range
of students. We will look at the effectiveness of
different approaches to recruitment and creating
a larger and more diverse pool of future mining
engineers. Stay tuned. n
References
Barton, I.F., Banta, J.H., and Hutson, L.L., 2021: What
can get students interested in mining engineering? Ongoing
UA study finds some answers. Mining Engineering 73.10: 30-
34.
Banta, J.H., Barton, I.F., and Hutson, L.L., 2021: Where
have all the mining engineering students gone? Mining
Engineering 73.2: 25-28.
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